Day 39
Sleeping location: By a river a few km west of Pazardzhik, Bulgaria
Distance (km today/total): 107 / 3899
Estimated climb (m today/total): 700 / 32100
New friends: 3
Day in three words: Through the mountains
After a relaxing lie in (until 8am!!!) I ate some overnight oats, drank some coffee and said goodbye to my lovely campsite. Last night’s dirt road carried on for about 4km, getting steadily worse but still rideable. Abruptly the road ran out and I had to follow a hiking trail for the final 2km. It wasn’t too bad as it was downhill, so I could “walk” the bike and steer it round the dodgy bits, and it was through a beautiful quiet forest which was only spoiled by me clonking Maggie around. Hilariously this section was still shown as a continuation of the 6206 road on google maps. After an hour or so I came out onto tarmac again, so the dirt road gamble was definitely worth it, although it would have been a lot worse in wet weather or going the other way.
After this the route went down a beautiful river valley then up over another beautiful pass to 1500m. If not already obvious, I thought the whole Rila area was very beautiful, although there was a tough section of 3km at 10% which made me like it a bit less. Over the top I headed back down and out of the mountains, via a very shabby ski resort which made me feel a bit sad. What should then have been a glorious descent from 1500m to 500m was utterly ruined by an absolutely terrible road surface, all lumps and bumps and cracks and potholes, which turned me into mashed potato over the course of the next 20km.
After this we entered the “valley of abandoned factories” (my own title), which was kind of interesting. One of the towns had a park where a tank had been painted bright green and left by the children’s play area, which was fun*. There was also a shop which only sold toilet roll, which may be the “toilet store” that Brick Tamland referred to in Anchorman. In a grocery shop I managed to find possibly the only woman in Bulgaria who spoke Spanish, which led to probably the best in-person conversation I’d had in a week, although this was soon eclipsed as:
At this point, after seeing only two touring cyclists in the last week, I met three in the space of half an hour. Hugo and Nina, cycling a tandem from Toulouse to Mongolia, and Andreas, cycling from Cologne to SE Asia. The other three had met on the road a few times before as they’d been following a similar route through the Balkans. At first I was a bit shy as I wasn’t sure of the cycle touring etiquette when you meet new people, but apparently it’s just “be lovely”, so we quickly made friends and then all set off to find a camp spot together. We settled on a pretty nice sandy area by a river, nicely hidden by a big levee thing. It was great to have a chat and share out food after a week of being solo. Andreas and I both slept with the outers off our tents, which was nice after a few days in the cold mountains. The moon was so bright that it was casting shadows and you didn’t even really need a torch. One of the best things about wild camping is how you can appreciate things like this that you just wouldn’t in a town.
*This seems to be a thing in Bulgaria - the next day I saw another park with an old Mig fighter jet, and I’ve seen another park-based Mig on a previous trip
Distance (km today/total): 107 / 3899
Estimated climb (m today/total): 700 / 32100
New friends: 3
Day in three words: Through the mountains
After a relaxing lie in (until 8am!!!) I ate some overnight oats, drank some coffee and said goodbye to my lovely campsite. Last night’s dirt road carried on for about 4km, getting steadily worse but still rideable. Abruptly the road ran out and I had to follow a hiking trail for the final 2km. It wasn’t too bad as it was downhill, so I could “walk” the bike and steer it round the dodgy bits, and it was through a beautiful quiet forest which was only spoiled by me clonking Maggie around. Hilariously this section was still shown as a continuation of the 6206 road on google maps. After an hour or so I came out onto tarmac again, so the dirt road gamble was definitely worth it, although it would have been a lot worse in wet weather or going the other way.
After this the route went down a beautiful river valley then up over another beautiful pass to 1500m. If not already obvious, I thought the whole Rila area was very beautiful, although there was a tough section of 3km at 10% which made me like it a bit less. Over the top I headed back down and out of the mountains, via a very shabby ski resort which made me feel a bit sad. What should then have been a glorious descent from 1500m to 500m was utterly ruined by an absolutely terrible road surface, all lumps and bumps and cracks and potholes, which turned me into mashed potato over the course of the next 20km.
After this we entered the “valley of abandoned factories” (my own title), which was kind of interesting. One of the towns had a park where a tank had been painted bright green and left by the children’s play area, which was fun*. There was also a shop which only sold toilet roll, which may be the “toilet store” that Brick Tamland referred to in Anchorman. In a grocery shop I managed to find possibly the only woman in Bulgaria who spoke Spanish, which led to probably the best in-person conversation I’d had in a week, although this was soon eclipsed as:
At this point, after seeing only two touring cyclists in the last week, I met three in the space of half an hour. Hugo and Nina, cycling a tandem from Toulouse to Mongolia, and Andreas, cycling from Cologne to SE Asia. The other three had met on the road a few times before as they’d been following a similar route through the Balkans. At first I was a bit shy as I wasn’t sure of the cycle touring etiquette when you meet new people, but apparently it’s just “be lovely”, so we quickly made friends and then all set off to find a camp spot together. We settled on a pretty nice sandy area by a river, nicely hidden by a big levee thing. It was great to have a chat and share out food after a week of being solo. Andreas and I both slept with the outers off our tents, which was nice after a few days in the cold mountains. The moon was so bright that it was casting shadows and you didn’t even really need a torch. One of the best things about wild camping is how you can appreciate things like this that you just wouldn’t in a town.
*This seems to be a thing in Bulgaria - the next day I saw another park with an old Mig fighter jet, and I’ve seen another park-based Mig on a previous trip
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